Jacked Up

by Erica Sage

  “We saw the pastor come back.” Matthew watched me.

  “I know. He left me in that tomb place.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you were alone?” Matthew continued.

  “I didn’t paint these,” I said. “Why would I paint these?”

  “Why would anyone paint them?”

  “I told you. My confession’s in that box, and I want it back just as bad as you.”

  “We haven’t seen it,” Matthew argued. “We haven’t seen anything about your sister.” Matthew was looking at me, just as I’d looked at him when the box disappeared. “That’s gotta be what your confession is about. It’s the thing you don’t want to talk about.”

  And I glared at him as if my eyes could shoot bullets. He wasn’t on my side anymore. “Everybody already knows my sister shot herself. It’s not a secret.”

  “Yeah, and it’s also not a secret you hate Charles. And it wouldn’t be hard to figure out this was his confession,” Payton said.

  “Are you serious right now? Listen, I think I know who did it.”

  “Dude, are you serious right now? Are we supposed to believe you?”

  Yes, Matthew was supposed to believe me. He and Natalie had been the only ones left who weren’t throwing spitballs at me or kicking me or glaring. “Someone did see me in that tomb place,” I continued.

  “You just said the pastor left. You’re lying. Or you’re insane.”

  I was. I was insane. Jack had been the only one who saw me in that tomb.

  But Holly had seen me go in.

  “Okay, if you really think I did it, go tell on me. But I have to do something.”

  I ran out of the bathroom, past Charles sitting on sad road. I was now one of hundreds of kids running out of my cabin. But I wasn’t off to read another gossipy confession. I wasn’t seeking solace with my bestie. I wasn’t praying to some god.

  I ran past the other campers. Past the empty volleyball court, past the empty pool, past Magic Jesus or Hillbilly Jesus, or whatever role he wanted to play. I had him now. But I wanted my confession—and the evidence—in my hand before I turned him in.

  He stood watching the melee, arms folded, no one seeking his miracles.

  The door was closed when I got to the custodian’s office, but I let myself in. It was my third time entering without being asked.

  The cart with the paint buckets wasn’t there. But the laptop was.

  I opened it up. And there it was.

  Not child porn. The slideshow. It started out as rap, then contemporary lyrics. And then confession after confession. It had a hundred twenty slides.

  So it was Jesus. Jesus by day, custodian by night, confession bandit behind the scenes. I scanned the shelves again for the PC Box. Maybe I had just missed it the night before. I spun around, looked up and down. No, it wasn’t there. I opened the cupboard. The paint cans were gone, and there was no box.

  I spotted the two buckets from the night of the garbage can pranks. They were stacked where I’d found the one behind the custodian’s work apron. The apron thing wasn’t there now, so it was easy to see them. And easy to see they weren’t stacked properly.

  When I lifted the one out of the other, I saw why. The bottom bucket was a foot deep with little scraps of paper.

  I set the bucket down and knelt next to it. I dipped my hands in, and the papers shifted away like sand. Every confession.

  I would turn them in, turn in Custodian Jesus. But I wanted mine out first. Surely, the pastor wouldn’t let me dig through them later.

  I dumped them all out on the f loor. Then I read and read and read, discarding each into the bucket if it wasn’t mine. Some of the prayers were ridiculous to me—bigger boobs, bigger penis, hotter girlfriend, any boyfriend. But some were devastating—cancer and Alzheimer’s and abuse and poverty and meanness and guilt and loneliness.

  So much loneliness. Like nobody understood one another. Like nobody loved each other.

  And then I saw one that I recognized. Not the confession, but the handwriting.

  I knew the handwriting.

  I’d seen it in the book she’d given me, the handwritten inscription and sample margin notes.

  I was holding Natalie’s confession in my hands.

  Please pre-forgive me for running away to find my meth-y brother. And then there was a sketch of Frankenstein’s monster.

  Or a zombie.

  I put my head in my hands.

  That was, in fact, the nickname of meth heads. Zombies. Heroin addicts were sleepwalkers. Meth heads were zombies. Zombie camp wasn’t some drama thing. I hadn’t really heard her.

  There was another sentence on her confession. I read it. My stomach clenched. I read it again.

  Forgive me for shooting up too.

  My face f lushed. I should not know this. I should not have seen this. I felt some kind of sick shame for her.

  She hadn’t lied about her confession. She would not be going to City School if this got out. It violated every contract any high schooler ever signed. It violated the law.

  And she was running away.

  I’d seen her on the hillside twice. I’d even found her on the hillside with her backpack on. Full of food and water. Had she been running away then? Or trying to?

  I’d seen her just that morning. She’d given me that book, and she’d seemed weird for a second. Then she’d gone back to normal.

  But I hadn’t seen her the rest of the day. She wasn’t at the mud pit. I’d seen Kim, but I hadn’t seen Natalie.

  I had to tell Pastor Kyle.

  Right after I found my confession.

  I set Natalie’s on the desk, then sifted through another handful of papers and found mine—all caps and a lot shorter than what other people had written.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I turned around, hands up in surrender.

  Not Dan this time, but not Jesus either.

  It was Holly.

  “Hey, I know this looks bad. But I found all the confessions,” I said, sweeping my hands over the pile on the f loor.

  She stepped in the room. “I see that.”

  I stood up, my confession in hand.

  “The custodian took them,” I said. “I know everyone thinks it’s me because I said weird things and I found one of the confessions, but it wasn’t. It was that Jesus guy, which makes sense because he has access to them. You know, the guy with the master key always has the most power.” I was rambling.

  “Everyone had access to them,” she said. “They were on the stage.”

  “Right, yeah, but I meant at night.”

  “The doors were all unlocked.” She looked at me. “You would know, right?”

  “Know what?”

  “That, with the exception of the tomb room, all the doors are unlocked.”

  I stared at her. “Are you talking about the pranks?” She was not acting alarmed. “You know about the pranks?”

  “You mean the night you snuck in here and accused Jimmy of being a pedophile because my laptop was open on his desk?”

  “Who’s Jimmy?”

  “The custodian?” She sighed. “Jesus?”

  Hillbilly Jesus’s name was Jimmy. Dear gawd, the universe was so perfect sometimes.

  “Dan said that, not me.”

  “Whatever, Nick. I saw you in here.”

  “Yeah, okay. So I’m going to go talk to Pastor Kyle.”

  “Nick, please don’t do that,” she moved to the center of the doorway, her hands out, stopping me from walking out.

  “Wait … your laptop,” I said. And that’s when I saw the paint—a little on her palms, a little on her fingers. Red. And smeared. “You had opportunity …” I said, mostly to myself. She had access to this office. And she’d come out of the sanctuary last, later than anyone that night. She’d been so distracted. She’d been more Holly and less Red Lips Ho-Lo. She had the slideshow with all the confessions.

  “Opportunity?” sh
e asked.

  I’d seen her with that computer bag. I’d seen her loading the cart with paints. She’d had a folder of papers in her cubby. Maybe more confessions, to tape to more signs and post all over camp again. “Yes,” I said. “But motivation?” I looked from her hands to her face. “Why would you steal these confessions? Why would you put them all over?”

  “Oh, my God.” She pulled her hands through her hair. “You have no idea, do you?”

  “What don’t I know?”

  “Do you know what it’s like to be condemned, over and over and over again?”

  That word. Condemned. What had Diana said once? They condemn me for the love I have to give.

  “All. Year. Long. They just keep telling stories about me. Do you even know how many true stories there are to tell about me? Two, Nick. Two true stories. I’ve slept with two guys.” She bit her lip. “And maybe that’s a lot. Maybe that’s a lot for a sixteen-year-old Christian girl. Or maybe it doesn’t matter. Or maybe everyone is fucking everyone else too, but the goings-on in my vagina are of utmost interest.”

  Her face folded, like she was going to cry. I reached out for her and she shrugged me away.

  “Do you want to know the worst part of all of it? Those aren’t even the stories I really hear about myself. I don’t hear the truth. Nobody talks about me and Payton. Nobody talks about the other guy, who also goes to our school.” She laughed. “No, it’s all just made-up stories. If I sigh, I’m breathing all hot and heavy. If I put my hand on someone’s shoulder, I’m f lirting. If I walk just so, I’m shaking my ass.”

  She put on a California-girl accent, “Oh, my God, did you see how much makeup she wore? Oh, my God, she’s not wearing any makeup …” Back to her normal voice. “Yeah, ’cause even ugly me is scandalous.” And then California Girl returned. “Oh, my God, she curled her hair today. Oh, my God, her hair’s straight today. Who is Holly after next? Who’s on Holly’s ‘play’ list? Who’s on her greatest ‘hit’ list?” She looked at me, “Oh, you haven’t heard those? Get it?”

  She squinted her eyes and put on a look of fake interest. “Have you heard about why Payton broke up with me? Let me tell you the boring truth. I didn’t have sex with anyone. I got too drunk at a party one night. And, guess what? So did everyone else at my school. But that was too boring, so let’s make up a new story—according to my classmates, I slept with like five guys that night. All of us! At one time! In the parents’ bedroom or some shit!”

  She raised her eyebrows at me. “Yeah, that’s why Payton and I broke up. Because I”—air quotes—“cheated on him. I didn’t fucking cheat on him! I went to a party and got drunk and probably batted my eyes at cute boys. But even Payton, who’s supposed to love me, believed the stories instead of me.”

  My stomach twisted. I didn’t want to hear this. I felt guilt, and shame. I had listened to the stories about Holly. I had laughed at the jokes. Even when I started to feel uncomfortable, I had never stood up for her. I never really asked her if she was okay.

  My shame and her shame churned inside me.

  I felt Charlotte’s shame too. As much as I didn’t want to, I felt it. She had been judged over and over. Everyone around her had insisted she could only be one thing, just like they tried to fit Holly into a tiny box. And she must’ve felt the same anger and desperation. The solution, for her, had been to choose something new. To grab on to God—no, to grab on to a list of rules that she got from her understanding of God.

  That’s not how everyone did it. But that’s what Charlotte did. I didn’t agree, but all of a sudden I saw, through Holly, why my sister grabbed on so tightly. Why she still hadn’t let go.

  “Holly …”

  “You mean Ho-Lo, right? Yeah, I know what they call me.”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you know what Matthew’s confession is? Or do you know what it should be? Have you ever asked him? Ask him why his parents sent him to Valley Christian. Ask him about his pregnant girlfriend.”

  “I didn’t know about that,” I said.

  “I know you didn’t. People from school know, but we don’t talk about it. It’s impolite.” Holly air-quoted. “But my business is open to everyone twenty-four seven. Do you know all the shit in that box? Well, you do now, because I put it out there.”

  “Holly—”

  “You probably think I’m so, so, so evil. And maybe I am. But more than evil, I am tired. I am so fucking tired of being the story that everybody tells. Look around at what’s going on in people’s private lives. I am not the only one. And that’s what I want them to see. I want them stop talking about me. Because everybody has a fucking story!”

  Holly’s face was splotchy, from tears and fury both.

  She’d stolen every hope and every secret. She’d publicized them.

  And they would crucify her for it. She would lose everything—certainly her work scholarship to camp. Her boyfriend, every friend, her private school.

  “I won’t tell.”

  She wiped snot from her nose. It was not hot. It was real. “What?”

  “I promise. I won’t tell anyone.”

  She laughed then. Like a crazy-witch laugh. “Yeah right. You have every reason to tell. You’re the one serving the sentence for everything I’ve done. They made you drag a cross.” She shook her head. “Like you’d steal anything.”

  She sounded like Jack.

  “I won’t tell. But you need to,” I said.

  “Oh, hell no.”

  “Not everyone. Just Pastor Kyle.” Then I added, “John 1:9.”

  “Did you just quote the Bible to me? Like, actually?”

  “I mean 1 John 1:9.” I wouldn’t make her think there was some light she couldn’t see. Though, I guess that was true of all of us. We were constantly searching.

  “Are you serious right now?”

  “Listen, everybody knows this place isn’t for me. But, Pastor Kyle, he’s … I don’t know … he’s looking out for everyone.” And I believed what I was saying. I had seen him working with the campers. I had seen them come to him in tears and in laughter. I had seen him stand up on that stage and speak. He trusted in the Word, and he believed his own words, and he wanted to share the beauty and truth he knew with everyone else. He was what this camp was really about. Not Charlotte, not people like her. The pastor—grammar abuse and all. “If you tell him, I won’t tell anyone.”

  She considered. “Give me one more day, Nick.”

  I stared at her. My confession. Natalie’s confession. I would need Charles to math out the chances that any one confession would be pulled out in a twenty-four-hour period. It was the Hunger Games all up in here. The odds may have been in our favor, but we had all seen what happened to Primrose Everdeen anyway. “Why would I give you one more day?”

  “I’ll make you a deal. Take your confession. I’ll give you that. You give me another day.”

  And I could hardly believe myself, but … I wanted to give her something. Because we—all the campers—had taken and taken and taken. We told stories that stole her truth. We told jokes that stole her dignity. We talked about her like she was our story to tell. And maybe we owed her something: the chance to tell her truth. The choice to tell her story. What Holly was doing was wrong, but she still deserved what she’d wanted all along. The power to say what really happened.

  “If I give you a day, will you tell Pastor Kyle?”

  She sighed and looked down at the f loor. “Yes.”

  I clenched my confession in my hand and thought of my parents. What these words would do to their barely-there connection. The way they argued, the way they turned sullen, the contempt that festered between them. The silence that had grown so large that it had pushed my dad out for a while. They’d told me he was traveling, but I wasn’t stupid. And now he was back. I didn’t know the chances of them getting a divorce, but if they knew what I’d done, they had to be exponential.

  I hesitated. “I take one confession, you get a day, and you go talk
to Pastor Kyle tomorrow?”

  Holly nodded.

  I picked up the slip of paper on the desk. I read it, and I read mine. Finally, I dropped my own confession back into the pile.

  I stirred up the papers before I changed my mind. I was battling math. Fighting the probability that Holly would pull that confession.

  “This is the one,” I said.

  My confession shouted at me as I ran out the door. It beseeched me to come back for it. But I didn’t.

  I held on to Natalie’s.

  Natalie’s probability of having her confession pulled was the same as mine. But if it was pulled, the chances of her getting kicked out of her school were 100 percent. My parents divorcing … well, there was no way to know. And I couldn’t tell people how to live their lives. I couldn’t control their afters.

  Pastor Kyle was in Babyl On counseling a sobbing girl. I could see them through the window. The door was locked; I knocked on the glass.

  He opened the door and leaned his head out. “Nick, give me a few minutes.”

  “I just have to talk to you about Natalie really fast.” I figured he’d respond quicker to her name than to some heathen like me.

  “Okay, buddy. I’ve got a situation. Make it fast.”

  “I’m worried about her.”

  “I’m worried about a lot of these kids, Nick. Look around. A lot of hurting people.”

  I wanted to tell him about Holly. But I couldn’t.

  But if I told the pastor about Natalie, he could help me save her. And it’s not like he was going to post her secret for the campers to see.

  “I think she ran away.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, she wanted to see her brother.”

  “You know about her brother?”

  “Kind of. He’s a—”

  “A methamphetamine addict, yes. At a clinic nearby.” And then he patted my shoulder.

  He already knew the truth about her. Imagine everything else he knew. I bet half those confessions weren’t even surprises to him.

  “But don’t worry, Nick,” the pastor said. “He checked out.”

  “Wait, what? He checked out?”

  “Of rehab.”

  On the hillside the day before, she’d said he was there, at zombie camp.